Positive is not really the metric here. The immediate positive nature is relative to the delivery and application. Communication is what builds trust in humans, if it ends up being negative, you are fucking it up.

Gratitude goes so far in so many situations. I'm knownim just a big ol hippie, but even if you're not sure why, just say thank you to important people in your life, no matter what the situation. It will become clearer and clearer every day.

Most of the time, when an employee makes a mistake, it can cost money. If you look at it from this point. I just spent $xxx training this employee, and he knows how much he just cost and is going to make sure he doesn't do it again. Now if he keeps making the same mistake, it's time to change his roll into something he can manage.

If your team doesn't feel like they can admit their mistakes, it means that you will not be told about mistakes, and that means your business will always be paying for surprise mistakes that nobody ever owns up to. That pallet that got loaded onto the truck without being strapped, just wrapped, and then all the merchandise on it got destroyed in shipping. That box full of widgets that got made .001" outside of tolerance, and all of them have to be returned, replaced, destroyed, at great expense of both money and reputation. That paperwork that got handled incorrectly but you won't know about it until someone else's lawyers do, and use it against you. That piece of software built with that critical bug that the engineer realized was there but didn't tell you about because they didn't want to get called a "special snowflake" in front of their peers again, so it underperforms and everyone buys the competitors product . It means you don't get told about the things that hurt your team, your brand, your bottom line, because everyone is too worried about not being made fun of and not getting fired to admit they made a mistake and get help.

This is leadership 101. Accept and correct mistakes, coach the team member, show them the right way to do the job, and praise them for coming to you for clarification and help. It means they care about their job and have enough personal responsibility to accept the consequences of their actions; that they are willing to put the best interests of the team and the company and the customer over their own. People who admit mistakes and own up to them are often your best people, in the long run. Don't belittle them. That's not leadership; that's being a jerk.